Paul & Banjo,

Given the severity of droughts across Australia since the Ice Age ended, the Indigenous population before 1788 might have varied between a quarter and a half a million people across Australia. A severe drought might have brought the population down to that lower level, or even lower, and it might have taken centuries to build it back up again. Before the next severe drought.

Currently, the Indigenous population is around seven hundred thousand. Since 1788, it may have dropped well below a quarter of a million, mainly through grog and diseases for which people had no immunity, especially tuberculosis, which could take people in a matter of weeks. In South Australia, an insignificant part of Australia, the Protector of Aborigines appointed doctors in regions to provide free medical attention. Bastards.

And given the inefficiency of counting methods before 1971 (the first Census to specifically count Indigenous people as Indigenous people) and the likelihood that many people have been slipping under the radar since 1788, it's no surprise that the official 1971 Census population had declined to only 150,000 or so. 'Massive increases' from one Census to the next, of around 5 % p.a - in fact, larger population increases than the number of babies born - suggest that there were many people 'out there' who did not officially identify as Indigenous.

I hope this helps.

Joe

Hi Paul,

Sovereignty is a foundation of effective government: in traditional times, clans would have been responsible for fairly minimal governmental functions, mainly maintaining relations with other clans for marriage purposes, and protecting the clan's boundaries. Conflict between clans would have had less to do with resources than with access to women.

Paul, maybe it's helpful to think of Aboriginal clans as similar to Maori whanau, or if they were much larger, to hapu. Did whanau have sovereignty, governmental functions ? Their own family lands to cultivate, yes, and tupuna participating in hapu and iwi matters. Maori were far more organised in a formal or Western sense than Aboriginal groups, although some groups were less able to resist the invasions of stronger groups such as the Ngati Awa and, forgive me, Ngapuhi.

What would Aboriginal clan sovereignty mean today, with the Indigenous majority living in urban areas and even specific 'community' becoming a distant memory for the next generations ? With each generation, the knowledge about which clan one belongs to, fades away. So the relevance of the concept slips way as well. We're all Australians, and that's fine with me.

Joe

Hi Banjo,

I'm not convinced either that there were successive waves of invaders coming into what is now Australia - I don't think that even Papuans had much presence or influence across the north-east, otherwise their DNA would turn up in the Aboriginal population there.

At the end of the last Ice Age, ten or twelve thousand years ago, Australia and PNG were a single land mass, and probably had been for tens of thousands of years. Any 'invaders' would have come up against well-established foragers - everybody in the world back then were foragers (except maybe the people in the PNG highlands, with a geography which cut the region into a myriad of valleys and mountains, more or less). Rising sea-levels after the Ice Age would have cut off any chance of invasion: not even the Austronesian seafarers could establish a foothold over the last four or five thousand years.

After the initial groups moved down from the Malay Peninsula (as a small bottleneck population) all of the coastal regions between Malaya and Australia would have been occupied, so invaders would have had to fight their way over a couple of thousand miles, with no particular intention or awareness of moving east and then south to reach Australia: not all that likely.

There may be some problems with the dating techniques of that discovery of stone tools in the Kimberley which put the date well back before fifty thousand years.

So whoever got here first would have had a founder advantage, enabling a very small group to populate the vastnesses of Australia over many thousands of years. With no land pressure or opposition, groups could have moved out across Australia, down the coasts and up river valleys towards the drier parts, which may have been intermittently populated (and more subject to frequent droughts) ever since. By the time of Mungo Man and Lady thirty-odd thousand years ago, , i.e. in much more fertile times than now, all of Australia would have been occupied.

Joe

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Dear Loudmouth,

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I'm inclined to agree with you, Joe. Your reasoning makes good sense to me.

If there were waves of arrivals of Aboriginal peoples to Australia, I think they would have occurred within a relatively short period, probably by different clans that had already been living in close proximity to each other before arriving here.

As you pointed out in your last post to Paul, it was important for different clans to « maintain relations with other clans for marriage purposes, and protecting the clan's boundaries. Conflict between clans would have had less to do with resources than with access to women ». 

If that were the case, the new arrivals would not have been greeted with hostility but, on the contrary, with goodwill and satisfaction.

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Dear Paul,

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You asked « Issy and Co. » :

« Could you please list some of the benefits, as you perceive them, bestowed on Aboriginal people by the British between 1788 and 1900 ? »

I can't think of any for that first century of British colonisation, but given the radical transformation of the pristine ecosystem in which they had evolved prior to colonisation, their traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyle was no longer viable.

The future had finally caught up with them but, though the shock was rude, they transited from what rhross calls « stone-age » culture to modern civilisation faster than any other people had ever done throughout the entire history of humanity.

They could never have achieved this if it had not been forced on them.

.

Hi Joe,

Yes the Aboriginal connection was not as, how can I say it, flattering, at one time as it may be today, something to be denied. I spoke to you of my own mothers denial of some Aboriginal blood throughout her life. Yet her own grandmother had the look of "Truganini". Mum had her story of a Mauritius connection, which she took to her grave.

I find it most interesting that there is a general lack of Melanesian blood in the Aboriginal population of Northern Australia. How the original settlement of Australia took place, how did these early migrants interact with each other. I do not believe it was necessarily hostile. If it was, then the new arrivals would have little chance of establishing themselves. Were new arrivals known to the existing inhabitants in advance, was there a "family" connection? How did Aboriginal people manage to populate the whole continent? Why did some choose the best parts, the coastal fringe, while others were consigned to the less hospitable arid interior. Was it by choice, or was it by force.

Hi Banjo,

Early benefits of colonisation ? Hmmm, let me think. Of course, I can speak only of South Australia, an insignificant part of Australia, even though I'm originally from Sydney and went to school in Darwin.

Well, the ration system, for one: instead of having to go out and collect the wonder food, kangaroo-grass, and spend all evening grinding it, the women (who held up considerably more than half the sky in those days) simply had to stroll down to the depot, collect their pound of flour per person, and stroll back, work it into a damper (sorry, bread) and bake it, and then sit back all day and yarn with each other.

All but the able-bodied got that deal, and the able-bodied were expected to exercise their rights to use the land as they always had done, and go out and hunt or fish.

Oh, and free medical services. And free travel passes around the colony. And all the meat they could eat from the whale 'fisheries' in return for collecting firewood or looking after the blubber pots.

Oh, and free schooling, with meals. On Missions, cottages.

But yes, what else did the British ever do for Aboriginal people? Bastards.

As for the populating of Australia: 'new arrivals' - in groups hundreds or thousands of years apart, would not have been in any way related, nor speak each others' languages. Perhaps they brought with them newer hunting and war technology from Asia over the millenia, but they would have had to battle every inch of the way in unfamiliar country.

As for "Why did some choose the best parts, the coastal fringe, while others were consigned to the less hospitable arid interior", I don't think it would have worked that way: clans would have moved into empty country, and younger clan split-offs would have moved out, perhaps generation by generation, to colonise new country. They might have been driven back to their father-clans by droughts, and had to re-populate stricken areas afterwards. Before the next big drought.

I learn so much from threads like this one:)

Cheers,

Joe